dvanced Tory
views were so rabid that he almost made perverts from the cause, of
all those whom he desired to convince.

And even these were few, for Lord Radclyffe had no friends and very
few acquaintances. He had a strange and absolute dislike for his
fellow men. He did not like seeing people, he hated to exchange
greetings, to talk or to mingle with any crowd that was purely on
pleasure bent. He went up to the House and made speeches--political,
philanthropic, economic speeches--which Luke prepared for him, and
which he spoke without enthusiasm or any desire to please. This he
did, not because he liked it or took any interest in things political,
philanthropic or economic, but only because he considered that a man
in his position owed certain duties to the State--duties which it
would be cowardly to shirk.

But he really cared nothing for the thoughts of others, for their
opinions, their joys, or their sorrows. He had schooled himself not to
care, to call philanthropy empty sentiment, politics senseless
ambition, economics grasping avarice.

His was a life entirely wrapped up in itself. In youth he had been
very shy: a shyness caused at first by a serious defect of speech
which, though cured in later years, always left an unconquerable
diffidence, an almost morbid fear of ridicule in its train.

Because of this, I think, he had never been a sportsman--or, rather,
had never been an athlete, for he was splendid with a gun and the
finest revolver shot in England, so I've been told, and an
acknowledged master of fence, but with bat, ball, or racquet he was
invariably clumsy.

He had always hated to be laughed at, and therefore had never gone
through the rough mill of a tyro in athletics or in games. Arthur, one
of his brothers, had been a blue at Oxford; the other one, James--you
remember James de Mountford? was the celebrated cricketer; but he, the
eldest, always seemed to remain outside that magic circle of sport,
the great ring of many links which unites Englishmen one to another in
a way that no other conformity of tastes, of breeding, or of religion
can ever do.

Because of this diffidence too, no doubt, he had never married. I was
told once by an intimate friend of his, that old Rad--as he was
universally called--had never mustered up sufficient courage to
propose to any woman. And as he saw one by one the coveted
matrimonial prizes--the pretty girls whom at different times he had
admired sufficiently to d